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Book 


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COPlTilGHT DEPOSIT. 



The Gates of Utterance 

and Other Poems 



BY 
GLADYS CROMWELL 




BOSTON 

SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY 

1915 






^^'^ 



coptbioht, 1916 

Shebmax, French &> Compant 



Ml 28 IQI5 



TO 

ANNE DUNN 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Gates of Utterance 1 

The Riders 2 

Compensation 3 

Reality 4 

The Bat 5 

The Audience 7 

To France 10 

Approach 12 

Definition 13 

Emblems 14 

The Poet's Thrift 15 

Solicitude 16 

— ?• Aspiration 17 

Jov 18 

Education 19 

Evidence 20 

Progression 21 

— 'Intuition 22 

Kindred 23 

Resignation 24 

Solace of Seasons 25 

The Fountain 26 

The Threshold 27 

The Hermit 28 



PAGE 

Interpretation 29 

Victory 30 

The Hypocrite's Reward 31 

Testimony of Hands 32 

The Ascetic's Vindication 33 

Transmission 34 

Preparation 35 

Egypt 36 

Dusk 37 

Conflict 38 

To THE Crowd 39 

Autumn 40 



THE GATES OF UTTERANCE 
AND OTHER POEMS 



THE GATES OF UTTERANCE 

There is a throng within the gates, 
A pressing, diverse throng; 

Without, a peaceful throng awaits, 
To which I would belong. 

Within the gates the varied folk 

Advise discordantly ; 
Without, the poet-crowds convoke 

To council harmony. 

Within the gates are all the heights 
And depths of serried powers ; 

But when a lyric theme invites, 
I reach out-lying bowers 

Where dwell the bards of quiet years ; 

I join my song to theirs; 
My glad, unfettered spirit hears 

The melody it shares. 



[1] 



THE RIDERS 

You look askance at me. 
Do you take my horse 
For Pegasus? Of course 
He steps like Poetry, 
But he's a quiet beast. 
I think I hear you say 
You don't like in the least 
His fleet-footed way. 

But 3^our light flitting mare 
Skims the meadows too. 
Her nimble feet pursue 
The stony dales, dare 
The sloping pastures, leap 
The brooks. You do the things 
I do in dreams, asleep — 
(Pegasus has wings) ! 

You canter wide-awake. 

Your mare is real ; my steed 

Imaginary. Need 

You then suspect me? Take 

The cloud-rack by my side ! 

Partners, Life and Art, 

Adventurers, we ride 

To rhythms in heaven's heart. 



m 



COMPENSATION 

You never told me, never, yet I know 
You hold a sadness in disguise, unseen 
Behind the days and years that intervene 
Since you renounced ambition long ago. 
Whence comes the tender love that you bestow 
To feed our loves? Behind your self serene 
There burns a golden passion,— how you screen 
With radiant life the flame you must forego ! 
Then you assume our love is ample meed. 
Atonement,— oh! I wonder any deed 
Of ours can ease your spirit's lassitude. 
Or lift your lonely heart ! Our stars elude 
Your sun that made them bright — your soli- 
tude. 
Deprived, no boon avails to fill your need. 



[3] 



REALITY 

What things are real? 

This falling, falling rain, 
This garden where 

My flowers droop again? 

Or simply dreams, 
Dreams asleep in me 

Until I join 

Their silent company? 



[4] 



THE BAT 

Over the river of sorrow 
Spread thy drab wings wide. 
Cool is the river. Glide 
Between the trees. Borrow 
The prudent feet of the fleeing 
Beast. Thy pinions blend 
With leaves. O thou All-Seeing, 
Be night's obedient friend ! 

To a gloomy bat, all sorrow 

Is cool and sombre and sweet. 

So no wonder thou fearest to meet 

The feline light of to-morrow. 

When out from the east a glimmer 

Of twilight corals thy wings, 

Thy vision gi*ows dimmer and dimmer, 

Thou dreamer of dusky things ! 

When morning comes out from the east, 
Advancing with stealthy ray. 
Thy wheeling wings betray 
Thy presence, Bird-and-Beast, 
Soaring to dismal bowers 
With smoke-like motion. Gladness, 
Flame-like, heaps through the hours 
Thine ashen sorrow and sadness. 



[5] 



Blinded by noon-day splendour, 
Unseeing till darkness return, 
Thy cinereous pinions yearn 
For stone-colored night. Surrender 
Thy spirit. Is not the sighing 
Monotony sweet? Maybe 
Creation is what we call dying, 
As daylight is darkness to thee. 



[6] 



THE AUDIENCE 

Intently leans the avid sage 

We name The Audience. His mood 

Invites a vigorous prelude 

Of sound, the silence to assuage, — 

The silence in sequestered sources 
Of his being. (Albeit his mind 
And soul and heart may be like wind- 
Awakened rivers in their courses.) 

In clear, attenuated line, 
The violin a theme avers. 
It is this theme as it recurs 
That forms the plenary design, — 

This theme, which the composer's love 
Could never deal with twice the same ; 
Submissive cellos now proclaim 
It ; louder clarions above 

Now give it wise embellishment. 
In unsuspected ways, all strings 
And pipes resume it, altering 
Their rhythms to be more eloquent. 

The strange, concurrent harmonies 
Provoke The Audience to pleasure, 
Lead by phrase and clustered measure 
To the peace of cadences. 



The Audience thinks in terms of tone ; 
The curious intellect pursues 
The flowing lines and shadowy hues 
Of sound, akin to sculptured stone ; 

Mind estimates. But in between 
The mind and soul an interim 
Is brimmed with intonations dim: 
The soul itself is left serene. 

Who can express what music is 
To soul ? A cloud becomes cascade 
And stirs a river winter-weighed 
With frost. The massive images 

Of mountains, on whose purple ground 

The falling water carves a line 

Of white, as narrow and as fine 

As winter floods when first unbound, 

Remind one of the soul Avhen sound 
Traverses it. Music is spring 
To soul, April's awakening, 
A freedom and a peace profound. 

But what is music to the heart.'' 
A trouble, a vicissitude, 
A dream no cadence will conclude. 
In it the surging sounds of Art 

[8] 



stay ever unresolved. They are 
Beginning only, origin, 
Inchoate symphony within 
A symphony of sky and star. 

There is no answer, thus and thus, 
That present players can impart 
To the long-listening, searching heart ; 
But answers multitudinous. 

The avid sage, The Audience, 
Is wrapped in his own silence dim. 
The mind, the soul, the heart in him 
Observe the circling consonance 

Of chords. These grow more intricate 
Each time they are resumed, and still 
One chosen theme the tones fulfill. 
One motion they delineate. 

So God reveals Himself to me. 

I am His audience ; I hear 

With mind and soul and heart. His clear, 

Progressive theme perpetually. 



[9] 



TO FRANCE 

Oh, still I dream of thee, my France ! The sun 
Irradiates thy meadows. Stalks of grain 
And aureate beams infusing them are one. 
There is a harmony that links thy plain 
To quiet skies ; that weaves a slender chain 
Of living vine with wavering light. Where cease 
Thy level spaces, hills dim clouds detain ; 
And in thy south, where seasons find increase. 
The sheaves, like kneeling women, praise thy 
peace. 

Unwilling and reluctant are my dreams. 

To recognize transforming destinies. 

I dream of thee, my France ; of mellow beams 

That ripen happiness ; of ample skies 

That frame thy far perspectives. Meadows rise 

To them by poplar spans. Upon thy ways 

I see the cross. The gentle Saviour dies 

With arms athwart the cloud. As heavenly 

rays 
Touch earth. His love a sense of light conveys. 

Is happiness no more than a disguise, 
A sheathing dream reality must wear? 
If so, away with joyful mockeries! 
My France, in desolation thou art fair. 
Thy trampled poppies and thy fields laid bare 
Express a beauty that prosperity 
[10] 



Concealed. Thj joys are fallen; fate would 

spare 
No ornament of peace. But I can see 
The strange unfolding of thy destiny. 

I love thee, and would know thee as indeed 
Thou art. No scythe, a sword embraces wheat. 
The poplars on thy margin seem to lieed 
No more the wind that made their stems throb 

sweet 
As lyre strings. The stars alone entreat. 
Thy vine is severed and thy grape is blood ; 
Thy sheaves are souls. Thy rising meadows 

meet 
The sky like surging waves of a dark flood, 
And shadow closes every quickening bud. 

My France, my France, in darkness I begin 
To know the light that only faith can shed 
Upon thy ways. As joy and beauty win 
Through death, so thou shalt win. Art thou 

not fed, 
Though fields are bare, with spiritual bread .? 
The star-strewn shadow crowns and dignifies 
Thy young, submissive God of the bowed head. 
How newly does thy sorrow harmonize 
With His, whose loving arms enfold the skies \ 



[11] 



APPROACH 

Apparelled in a mask of joy till now, 

I knew thee not. Asleep, I see thy face 

More simply. Sorrow's leisure lets me trace 

The nicer lines. Thy sealed lids, thy brow. 

Thy lasting posture, purposes avow ; 

In thy spent form resides a moveless grace. 

A pageant was thy life, and in its place 

I find a truth to feed and to endow 

My heart. Thy wonted mask of joy belied 

The meaning death's bare attitude makes clear. 

From living gesture thought went often wide. 

And I was poor interpreter ; but here. 

Where it would seem our thoughts anew divide, 

The steady silence draws thy spirit near. 



[12] 



DEFINITION 

As clouds lie in the west, 
My fairest pleasures rest 
In you, their element 
Of being. Loath to die, 
They ornament your sky. 
Amassed, magnificent. 

They shun the realms beyond. 
Are you not their fond, 
Fair dwelling by consent 
Of time? Why should they go 
And vanish quite, as though 
They were not all-content? 

My pleasures are not love. 
Else like the clouds above 
They swiftly would relent. 
They are mild beauty; dim, 
Resistless thought; and whim, 
And idle blandishment. 

Love is a wilful power, 
More like the wind or shower 
In which the cloud is spent. 
My pleasures only screen 
The space of light serene 
In your deep firmament. 

[13] 



EMBLEMS 

Where sweet ferns blow, where hemlock shad- 
ows lie, 
Where peaks of pine o'er oak-twined branches 

reach. 
In groves where bend the poplar and the beech, 
Where emerald willows touch the emerald sky, 
Thcj come to us, the Lost Ones. Far and high 
The winds among the trees lift muffled speech, 
And tell the hidden past ; we question each 
Entreating form those winds identify. 
Below the hill they huddle stone by stone. 
The lost ones and the loved ones we have known, 
Who followed, fearless, ways where beauty led ; 
But here upon the hilltop, winds intone 
The foregone past. Oh, let us think instead. 
The living trees are emblems of our dead. 



[14] 



THE POET'S THRIFT 

My landscape only need comprise low hills, 
For these are eminent and limitless 
To me. They mean more than my dreams ex- 
press ; 
They mean more than my word or deed fulfils. 
The slender trees, the tuneless whip-poor-wills, 
Impart quite ample themes to loneliness. 
I find enough in scant elusiveness 
Of springs and little brooks. My spirit thrills 
To beauty, unprepared for the sublime. 
I wonder, though, when I shall be completed 
Even to transcribe these hills.'' Sometime 
This landscape in few lines will show to me 
The subtle mysteries I have entreated. 
In the simple realm of poetry. 



[15] 



SOLICITUDE 

To me, your transport is a dim surmise, 
A vague, imagined bliss. But I will brace 
Myself to life ; though languid for the chase, 
Will gird my grief. AVhere your swift pleasure 

flies — 
Beneath whatever mirth-alluring skies — 
I'll follow, lest you pause in darkling space. 
Oh, let me gather stars, and turn your face 
To these, lest, meeting night, you breathe faint 

sighs ! 
Is joy illusion.? This, in sooth, is clear, — 
The pause of weariness ; and should I hear 
You drop a single sombre semi-tone 
From Paradise, I'd gather every star ; 
For I divine what it must be to mar 
This wonder that my breast has never known. 



[16] 



ASPIRATION 

Though my frail soul should never touch again 

The semblance of reality like this ; 

Through periods of time should always miss 

The imprint of true life ; nor find the plain, 

Familiar mould of being; still not vain 

Are those desires that frame undying bliss. 

The sky is not a vanishing abyss 

To me, but steadfast beauty, sheathing pain. 

I live in confidence. As planets turn 

About the sun, continually I yearn 

To God. His interpenetrating fire 

Is all I need. Though heaven prove mocker}^, 

My life ascends by dint of sheer desire, 

Imbued with hopes of immortality. 



[17] 



JOY 

How shall I make of joy discovery? 

For is it not an orbit that enspheres 

The heart? Like misty heaven, as one nears, 

The circuit spreads ; and like the flowing sea 

Whose waves evolve a scroll of mystery, 

Its vague development eludes the seers. 

It is a garment like the shrouding years, — 

A dusky shield, a cloudy canopy, 

Illumined by the soul that stands beneath. 

It must forever amplify, deploy. 

Give spirit space, — that's all I know of joy. 

It is a hovering defense, a sheath, 

In which the spirit comes to flowering, 

A folding and a cool enfolded wing. 



[18] 



EDUCATION 

I HAD lived many years when first I met 

What men call Sorrow. I had long conceived 

A semblance of it, thought I had achieved 

That magnitude, when side by side I set 

My lonely days. I knew the alphabet 

Of Life's experience, and I believed 

That when I touched another's grief, 

grieved ; — 
But when at last I was myself beset, 
I marveled. Little had I known. They told 
Me and they showed me death, but finally, 
Like shifting clouds no foresight can explain, 
I felt the changeful years envelop me. 
I was not loath to meet at last with pain, 
But oh ! to feel the youth my age could hold ! 



[19] 



EVIDENCE 

If there is any one device to show 

Me God, by which His aim is apprehended, 

Is it not forgiveness? You extended 

Zones of lovelier truth a while ago, 

My friend, when 3'ou considered me as though 

I had not been unfaithful, nor offended 

The deep love in which our lives are blended. 

Yes, by your acquittal I forego 

Mistrust. Your pardon is the pledge of powers 

By which we rise to new degrees of being. 

Now I read the crucifix that sealed 

The years. Your loving-kindness has revealed 

The symbol. The significance is ours. 

We take the step from symbol on to seeing. 



[20] 



PROGRESSION 

The resonance of wind and wave 
Is put to music by the tide ; 

So passion modulates to verse, 

And moves in rhythm's quiet stride. 

The bards in realms enchanted hold 
Familiar converse, like the birds ; 

Repeat emotion, improvise, 

Sustain the fundamental words, — 

Until, forsaking pastorals. 

They must pursue Life's ampler prose, 
A continuity of song 

The heart's experience only knows. 



[21] 



si INTUITION 

Rhythms of exultation flow 
In dusky regions far behind 
The formal meadows of the mind. 
Sighs waft syllables, as blow 
The winds the grasses to and fro. 

The shape of cloud, as thought effaces 
Dream, eclipses the moon's lustre. 
My winged stars, like swallows, cluster 
In the deep enchanted spaces 
That imagination traces. 



[22] 



KINDRED 

What inequality ! 

The apple trees and stones 

Are kindred. Love, the stormy aeons 

Have made my spirit bleak and grey. 

Like sun-emblazoned leaves 
Or blossoms in the spring, 
Your loveliness, o'ershadowing, 
A garland for my spirit weaves. 



[23] 



RESIGNATION 

The dark house yonder is my life ; 

It looms against the purple night ; 
The windows are my stars ; I count 

Them all, — each window one delight. 

Oh! there are many stars above, 
But mine in strong substantial woe 

Are framed ; I cannot misconstrue 
Life's dark intent, joy's fitful glow. 



[24] 



SOLACE OF SEASONS 

Cold winter finds no word of condolence. 

I laid my grief where pastures bright in spring 

Bore panacea, with young life whispering ; 

I laid my grief in summer by the side 

Of a deep sea that brought a healing tide ; 

When autumn came, I laid it in a cloud ; 

The strong wind bore it in that balmy shroud : 

Cold winter finds no word of condolence. 

When skies above are bleak, I will not care ; 
A flame I'll kindle for my chill despair, 
A flame within my heart, for condolence. 



[25] 



THE FOUNTAIN 

My garden fountain sings to-night, 
Its margin is all moist with spray, — 

That snow-white marble margin where 
A white rose dreams of drooping day. 

Upon the rose fall rhythmic drops, 

Snow-cool from the pale fountain's crest, 

Drops cooler than the shadows when 
The sun leads day-spring to the west. 

Unto the rose, my fountain's rim 

Is ample joy, while I, through tears. 

Can see my garden growing dim. 

And dream of sorrow's girding spheres. 



[26] 



THE THRESHOLD 

I THREADED endless aisles 
Of level trees, of spare, 
Undeviating wood; 
I penetrated streets 
Of houses parallel ; 
I crossed a common where 
My day paused sentinel ; 
At evenfall I stood 
Before the dim defiles 
Of dusk, where light retreats, 
Immured in sombre ward. 
The sheathed sun went down ; 
Opaque was heaven's froAvn ; 
Mountains, looming grey. 
Framed the threshold — yea - 
The portal to the Lord. 



[27] 



THE HERMIT 

I MARK the hermit's den, 
And ponder why he fled 

So far from other men ; 

Why chose to make his bed 

In lonely Nature's fen. 

For surely he must tread 
On yearnings even there ; 

And he must see — outspread 
The vital branches bear 

The burden of Christ dead. 



[28] 



INTERPRETATION 

My flesh aspired to soul's vitality. 

In mortal life's imperfect span 

I read the stately spirit's plan, 

Like scroll of cloud in heaven's immensity. 

Deciphering, it seemed a baneful tryst, — 

The flesh with radiant soul conferred 

Until the purport of the Word 

Was manifest. — The Word was even Christ. 



[29] 



VICTORY 

What are the friends of Jesus thinking, 

As they see 
Him crucified against the sky's 

Blue mystery? 

And Jesus, what can He be thinking 

On the cross? 
He looks upon the shadow throng 

Whom passions toss. 

They know a fervent exultation, 

Like day-spring 
Above their sorrow, and the promise 

Of their King. 

But Jesus, what can He be thinking? 

Crown of thorns, 
The memory of strife, His sovereign 

Soul adorns. 



[30] 



THE HYPOCRITE'S REWARD 

When came his final judgment, 
God gave him for his prize 

The crown, the single sceptre. 
He'd worn as his disguise. 

The crown, the single sceptre, 
A new, familiar shame; 

For when he came to judgment. 
He wore them in God's name. 



[31] 



TESTIMONY OF HANDS 

Is every day the judgment day? 
A thousand mortals lift on high 

A throng of hands that plead and pray ; 
Beneath a space of quiet sky, 
Their several gestures testify. 

Mh, mark the wistful hand that holds 
A sorrow in its upturned palm ; 

The gentle hand that firmly folds 
Across the breast to make it calm. 
Oh, mark the hand by which the balm 

Of youth was scattered, eloquent 
As the grey leaf upon the tree 

When summer's mellow joy is spent. 
Above that throng of hands, oh, see 
The Hand that plies eteraity. 



[32] 



THE ASCETIC'S VINDICATION 

How strange are we ! — From pale St. Francis 
down, 

Our solemn joy, our pain, 
Commanding, notable ; our hearts, anon 

Like flames no walls contain, 
Anon like wings that search oblivion. 

We make of time a pleading orison ; 

We pierce earth's dim domain ; 
We glance with eager eyes from faces wan ; 

We strive ; we press ; we gain ; 
We count not squandered strength. When life 
is done, 

Men shall affirm through us the Saviour shone. 

We crave adventure ; we attain. 
Defying death, immortal benison. 

" How strange you are, how vain ! " 
Plilegmatic minds assert in unison. 



[33] 



TRANSMISSION 

A SHELL expressed the verity 

In tones more limpid than the sea, — 

Distilled the sea's infinity. 

A mellow leaf disclosed the true 
In more than sun's pellucid hue, 
The sun was tinged in passing through. 

A wing revealed the sky unseen, 
Till motion made the air serene, — 
A wing — a soaring life, I mean. 



[34] 



PREPARATION 

A TIME will come when I shall breathe 

New melodies to soothe and fold, 
Like portions of a mellow slieath, 

My sorrow. While my songs withhold 
Their tones, I pause before the years ; 

I gaze on the gray world ; I strive 
To clear the mist of doubting tears. 

— My songs, what music you'll derive 
From silence in the time to come ! 



[35] 



EGYPT 

How still is Egypt, as a corpse's breast ; 

Her power is muffled, stone on stone ; 
The sinews of her kingdom lie at rest ; 

Her deserts wake no pulse's moan. 

The Nile is like an adamantine sea; 

Sky's cloud and star, like soundless flame; 
The moon in silence mourns eternity, 

And calls blind man with magic claim. 

The hushed, impenetrable fear, the peace 
Of wings, the palm's inwoven spray. 

Are like death's pause before the soul's release 
Into another golden day ! 



[36] 



DUSK 

As flowers at dusk their choicest perfumes hold, 
Some hearts hoard beauty when the body's old: 
I see an age-bent woman lead the herd 
To pasture, with no need of guiding word. 

While the dull beasts in the tall grasses browse. 
Inside her soul the earth's enchantments drowse ; 
The needles pause between her wasted hands, 
For light is always mellow where she stands. 

No motion marks her life's harmonious dream ; 
It is a part of Nature's quiet theme. 
Each day renews the uneventful past, 
Although her spirit nears a change at last. 

From the grey threshold of her silent home 
One night, her spirit, kin to evening's shade. 
Will float away from crevices life made, 
Like seaweed from a cliffy into white foam. 



[37] 



CONFLICT 

Divided by the dark, 

Our foils converge. A spark 

You kindled not, My Enemy, 

A spark I never drew 

From bitter fires that sear me through 

and through, 
Gleams fitfully. 

That spark, that little light. 

Is lit where foils unite. 

It lives in spite of us, My Foe ; 

In intervening space. 

This little eye that darts from place 

to place 
Sees clear, I know. 

Opinions are not one. 

And man's criterion 

Is not in us. Between, above. 

The cross that weapons frame. 

My Adversary, gleams a truth whose 

name 
Might still be Love. 



[38] 



TO THE CROWD 

When I hold a budding pleasure 
In my heart, can I diffuse it ? 

No ; you want the musk full-measure, 
Not the bud, — so you refuse it. 

When I hold an ebbing sorrow, 
Can I share the balm with you? 

No ; you want no lessening morrow, 
But meridian's deepest hue. 

Blossom of my joy completest, 
Zenith of my sorrow's hour, 

Yours. So I may keep the sweetest : 
Buds and lees — ambrosial power. 



[39] 



AUTUMN 

Capricious little poem and sapling rhyme 

Grew on the golden hillside of my youth. 

The stanzas were as crooked and uncouth 

As early tilings are wont to be. For time 

Was pressing and mid-summer's glowing prime 

Was ever imminent. Mysterious truth 

Was the warm soil thought sprouted from. 

Forsooth 
My songs were stem and filament to climb. 
But now, the memory of bud and fruit 
And flower is weariness. This present week 
In mid-September, wayward wild pursuit 
Is over; youth fulfilled. How shall they seek 
Beyond, unless from sunbeams in the skies 
These listless leaves take warmer harmonies? 



[40] 



